This invention relates to a liquid crystal display device.
A liquid crystal display panel used in a conventional liquid crystal display device has on one side surface of a liquid crystal thereof a plurality of digit electrodes corresponding to the number of display digits for selecting a digit to be displayed and on the other side surface a plurality of segment electrodes capable of forming characters, numerals, symbols and the like and disposed in a position opposite to that in which the plurality of digit electrodes are disposed. Where a character display is effected on such a liquid crystal display panel, it is necessary to provide a segment electrode drive signal system corresponding to the number of segment electrodes and it is also necessary to provide a digit electrode drive signal system corresponding to the number of digits. As a result, a larger number of connection lines are required between a drive circuit for driving the liquid crystal display panel and the liquid crystal display panel provided in the external of the drive circuit. If 8-digit characters are displayed on the display panel with seven segment electrodes used for each one digit, 56 connection lines are required for the segment electrode drive signal system only. Therefore, if the drivers, registers and operating circuits are provided in an LSI (Large Scale Integrated Circuit) form, a large number of connection lines which necessitate many external connection terminals in the LSI have to be used. As a result, it is not possible to increase the degree of integration of the LSI and a chip size thereof can not be made considerably smaller. Where an increased number of digits are employed, the drive signal system requires conection lines as obtained through multiplication of the number of segment electrodes per digit by the increased number of digits, resulting in the increase of the number of the connection lines and resulting in a very complicated circuit design.